Plane carrying Italian fashion boss Missoni missing

(CNN) — A small plane carrying six people, one of them Vittorio Missoni, a director of Italy’s Missoni fashion house, is missing off the coast of Venezuela, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol Torres said.

The plane was carrying four Italian nationals who were on vacation, he said in a statement Friday.

The search for the missing aircraft continued Saturday, an Italian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Missoni confirmed in a statement that Vittorio Missoni, the son of the fashion house’s founders Ottavio and Rosita Missoni, was on the plane with his wife.

“The small plane they were traveling on has disappeared. This is all the information currently available,” the company statement said.

Vittorio Missoni, 58, runs the company with his siblings, Luca and Angela.

The Venezuelan Interior Ministry identified the two other Italians as Guido Foresti and Elda Scalveuzi. A pilot and co-pilot also were on board.

The plane left Los Roques, an archipelago and resort, bound for the international airport outside Caracas, about 90 miles away, Reverol said.

A spokesman in the Italian Foreign Ministry’s media office confirmed that four Italians had been reported missing Friday night in Venezuela but declined to identify them.

The Italian authorities are in touch with their Venezuelan counterparts and the families of those missing, the spokesman said.

The Italian Foreign Ministry has called on the Venezuelan authorities to do all they can to locate the missing plane and those on board, he said.